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arXiv:cond-mat/0006057 · Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics

Exact multilocal renormalization group and applications to disordered problems

Pascal Chauve, Pierre Le Doussal

Published Oct 16, 2001• 33 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We develop a method, the exact multilocal renormalization group (EMRG) which applies to a broad set of theories. It is based on the systematic multilocal expansion of the Polchinski-Wilson exact renormalization group (ERG) equation together with a scheme to compute correlation functions. Integrating out explicitly the nonlocal interactions, we reduce the ERG equation obeyed by the full interaction functional to a flow equation for a function, its local part. This is done perturbatively around fixed points, but exactly to any given order in the local part. It is thus controlled, at variance with projection methods, e.g., derivative expansions or local potential approximations. Our EMRG method is well-suited to problems such as the pinning of disordered elastic systems, previously described via functional renormalization group (FRG) approach based on a hard cutoff scheme. Since it involves arbitrary cutoff functions, we explicitly verify universality to O(epsilon=4-D), both of the T=0 FRG equation and of correlations. Extension to finite temperature T yields the finite size (L) susceptibility fluctuations characterizing mesoscopic behavior (Deltachi)2 approximately L(straight theta)/T, where straight theta is the energy exponent. Finally, we obtain the universal scaling function to O(epsilon(1/3)) which describes the ground state of a domain wall in a random field confined by a field gradient, compare with exact results and variational method. Explicit two loop exact RG equations are derived and the application to the FRG problem is sketched.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.64.051102

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Renormalization group and critical localization

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The renormalization-group (RG) method is applied to the problem of formation of a localized state of a particle moving in a given potential. It is shown that RG transformation on the particle's Green's function can be performed exactly. The fixed-point equations yield information on the critical binding strength, while the transformation equations near the fixed points give scaling laws and critical exponents, e.g., for the dependence of the localization radius on the energy and the potential strength. The general theory is illustrated by considering the simplest case of the Slater-Koster problem in detail. We find that it is possible to take all the irrelevant variables into account and thus obtain the exact result for the critical binding point. Critical exponents and scaling laws are, however, universal in character. The method is then extended to the case of motion in random potentials, and some applications are pointed out. In particular it is shown that the RG properties of the averaged absolute value squared ($〈{|G|}^{2}〉$) of the Green's function do not correspond to a simple second-order phase transition. The analysis illustrates certain features of RG methods which have not heretofore been encountered in other problems and which are likely to be found in treatments of disordered materials. In particular, the runaway behavior observed in the RG transformation of $〈G〉$ and $〈{|G|}^{2}〉$ as well as in many random-spin systems, might be associated with the formation of bound states in the band tail for any amount of randomness.

Physical review. B, Solid state•May 1, 1977•66 citations
We develop a method, the exact multilocal renormalization group (EMRG) which applies to a broad set of theories. It is based on the systematic multilocal expansion of the Polchinski-Wilson exact renormalization group (ERG) equation together with a scheme to compute correlation functions. Integrating out explicitly the nonlocal interactions, we reduce the ERG equation obeyed by the full interaction functional to a flow equation for a function, its local part. This is done perturbatively around fixed points, but exactly to any given order in the local part. It is thus controlled, at variance with projection methods, e.g., derivative expansions or local potential approximations. Our EMRG method is well-suited to problems such as the pinning of disordered elastic systems, previously described via functional renormalization group (FRG) approach based on a hard cutoff scheme. Since it involves arbitrary cutoff functions, we explicitly verify universality to O(epsilon=4-D), both of the T=0 FRG equation and of correlations. Extension to finite temperature T yields the finite size (L) susceptibility fluctuations characterizing mesoscopic behavior (Deltachi)2 approximately L(straight theta)/T, where straight theta is the energy exponent. Finally, we obtain the universal scaling function to O(epsilon(1/3)) which describes the ground state of a domain wall in a random field confined by a field gradient, compare with exact results and variational method. Explicit two loop exact RG equations are derived and the application to the FRG problem is sketched.
We extend the exact multilocal renormalization group (RG) method to study the flow of the effective action functional. This important physical quantity satisfies an exact RG equation which is then expanded in multilocal components. Integrating the nonlocal parts yields a closed exact RG equation for the local part, to a given order in the local part. The method is illustrated on the O(N) model by straightforwardly recovering the eta exponent and scaling functions. Then it is applied to study the glass phase of the Cardy-Ostlund, random phase sine Gordon model near the glass transition temperature. The static correlations and equilibrium dynamical exponent z are recovered and several results are obtained, such as the equilibrium two-point scaling functions. The nonequilibrium, finite momentum, two-time t,t' response and correlations are computed. They are shown to exhibit scaling forms, characterized by exponents lambda(R) not equal lambda(C), as well as universal scaling functions that we compute. The fluctuation dissipation ratio is found to be nontrivial and of the form X[q(z)(t-t'),t/t']. Analogies and differences with pure critical models are discussed.
Continuous phase transitions provide a natural setting for understanding universality. Near criticality, the correlation length diverges, microscopic details become increasingly irrelevant, and physical observables obey scaling laws characterized by universal critical exponents. Within the Functional Renormalization Group (FRG), this scale dependence is described through the Effective Average Action, which progressively incorporates fluctuations as the momentum scale is lowered. A first part of this thesis is developed within the Local Potential Approximation (LPA), where we study multicritical fixed points of scalar field theories. Their universal properties are compared with results obtained at higher orders in the derivative expansion. Particular attention is devoted to the relation between global fixed-point potentials and their local representations through finite polynomial truncations. We show that the convergence of such expansions is constrained by the analytic structure of the global solution, and that expanding around a suitable nonzero stationary point significantly improves the reconstruction of multicritical branches. Beyond the structure of individual fixed points, a central part of this thesis concerns RG irreversibility. In two dimensions, Zamolodchikov’s c-theorem describes the flow from the ultraviolet to the infrared through a monotonically decreasing c-function. Within the FRG framework, we develop a variational procedure to reconstruct RG trajectories between fixed points and integrate the corresponding c-function along them. The resulting quantity displays monotonic behaviour and becomes increasingly stable as the truncation order is raised, providing a manifestation of RG irreversibility within the approximation considered. Finally, close to the upper critical dimensions, the linearized FRG flow around the Gaussian fixed point is naturally organized in terms of Hermite polynomials. Using the epsilon-expansion, we derive a curvature-based candidate c-function and obtain an analytic explanation for the alternating curvature of successive multicritical fixed points and for their progressive accumulation around the Gaussian fixed point.
The Polchinski version of the exact renormalisation group equations is applied to multicritical fixed points, which are present for dimensions between two and four, for scalar theories using both the local potential approximation and its extension, the derivative expansion. The results are compared with the epsilon expansion by showing that the non linear differential equations may be linearised at each multicritical point and the epsilon expansion treated as a perturbative expansion. The results for critical exponents are compared with corresponding epsilon expansion results from standard perturbation theory. The results provide a test for the validity of the local potential approximation and also the derivative expansion. An alternative truncation of the exact RG equation leads to equations which are similar to those found in the derivative expansion but which gives correct results for critical exponents to order ε and also for the field anomalous dimension to order ε 2. An exact marginal operator for the full RG equations is also constructed.
Since its introduction, the Renormalization Group has been the theoretical tool of choice for understanding and describing collective behavior characterized by an emergent scale invariance as in the vicinity of a continuous phase transition. It provides a powerful conceptual framework but, exact results being scarce, the search for generic and efficient approximation schemes has been very active from the very beginning. One recent line of research starts from an exact formulation of the Renormalization Group, in the form of a functional Renormalization Group (FRG) for scale-dependent generating functionals of correlation functions, and introduces potentially {it nonperturbative} approximations through ansatzes for the scale-dependent generating functional under study. The question that we address is to what extent such generic approximation schemes are able to describe specific problems in which the long-distance behavior involves strongly nonuniform configurations with, {it e.g.}, localized excitations.An example of such an approximation scheme within the FRG is the so-called derivative expansion of the effective average action (coarse-grained Gibbs free energy in the language of magnetic systems) which amounts to truncating the functional form of the latter in powers of the external momenta or equivalently in gradients of the fields. The derivative-expansion approximation focuses on the long wavelength properties and, in terms of coarse-grained configurations of the system, works as an expansion about uniform configurations. One may therefore wonder if such a scheme is able to capture the physics associated with nonuniform configurations containing, {it e.g.}, domain walls, spin waves, or localized defects such as the kinks and anti-kinks found in the instanton analysis of the 1-dimensional Ising model.In this work we assess the ability of the derivative expansion of the FRG to quantitatively describe the long-distance physics of a model across the whole range of space dimensions {it without a priori knowledge} of the relevant real-space coarse-grained configurations. To do so we first investigate how low orders of the derivative expansion describe the approach to the lower critical dimension d→dlc of the Ising-like scalar φ4 theory which is expected to be controlled by the proliferation of localized excitations (instantons). We show that the convergence of the fixed-point effective potential describing the critical point of the model is nonuniform in the field when the dimension d approaches dlcdlc, with the emergence of a boundary layer around the minimum of the potential. At the lowest nontrivial approximation level (known as LPA’) this allows us to make analytical predictions for the value of the lower critical dimension dlcdlc and for the behavior of the critical temperature as d→dlc, which are both found in fair agreement with the known exact results. We also consider for the same Ising-like scalar φ4 model the ordered phase in the limit where d→dlc. We focus on the way the effective potential in the FRG becomes convex as the proper spatial fluctuations, which now involve nonuniform configurations with a domain wall separating two phases, are included in the calculation.
Equations related to the Polchinski version of the exact renormalization group (RG) equations for scalar fields which extend the local potential approximation to first order in a derivative expansion, and which maintain reparameterization invariance, are postulated. Reparameterization invariance ensures that the equations determine the anomalous dimension η unambiguously and the equations are such that the result is exact to O (ε 2 ) in an ε-expansion for any multi-critical fixed point. It is also straightforward to determine η numerically. When the dimension d = 3 numerical results for a wide range of critical exponents are obtained in theories with O ( N ) symmetry, for various N and for ranges of η, are obtained within the local potential approximation. The associated η, which follows from the derivative approximation described here, is found for various N . The large N limit of the equations is also analysed. A corresponding discussion is also given in a perturbative RG framework and scaling dimensions for derivative operators are calculated to first order in ε.
The renormalization-group (RG) method is applied to the problem of formation of a localized state of a particle moving in a given potential. It is shown that RG transformation on the particle's Green's function can be performed exactly. The fixed-point equations yield information on the critical binding strength, while the transformation equations near the fixed points give scaling laws and critical exponents, e.g., for the dependence of the localization radius on the energy and the potential strength. The general theory is illustrated by considering the simplest case of the Slater-Koster problem in detail. We find that it is possible to take all the irrelevant variables into account and thus obtain the exact result for the critical binding point. Critical exponents and scaling laws are, however, universal in character. The method is then extended to the case of motion in random potentials, and some applications are pointed out. In particular it is shown that the RG properties of the averaged absolute value squared (〈∣G∣2〉〈{|G|}^{2}〉〈∣G∣2〉) of the Green's function do not correspond to a simple second-order phase transition. The analysis illustrates certain features of RG methods which have not heretofore been encountered in other problems and which are likely to be found in treatments of disordered materials. In particular, the runaway behavior observed in the RG transformation of 〈G〉〈G〉〈G〉 and 〈∣G∣2〉〈{|G|}^{2}〉〈∣G∣2〉 as well as in many random-spin systems, might be associated with the formation of bound states in the band tail for any amount of randomness.